5 October 2023
Max Kepler was 16 years old when he signed with the Twins, uprooting his life in Germany to move to a new continent and pursue his dream of playing professional baseball.
The Twins’ right fielder is now 30. He has spent almost half of his life in the Twins organization. But he has never experienced anything like this week until now.
“I’m grateful. I’m grateful. I’m grateful. I’m grateful. I’m grateful,” Kepler said. “We’re all blessed in this clubhouse to be a part of this. But we’ve got to stay grounded. We have, I think, 11 more games to win? That’s the goal. Keep it going.”
With two wins over the Toronto Blue Jays, the Twins are heading to the American League Division Series, where they draw the defending World Series champion Houston Astros as their opponents. The Astros have played in the World Series in four of the past six seasons and have made it to the American League Championship Series in all six.
The Twins will try to snap that run of dominance.
The best-of-five series will kick off at Minute Maid Park on Saturday. Game 2 will take place Sunday before the series shifts back to Target Field on Tuesday. Game 4, if necessary would take place in Minneapolis on Wednesday and a potential Game 5 would be Friday in Houston. Game times have yet to be announced.
Heading into the last day of the season, the Twins thought they might be matched up against the Astros in the Wild Card Series. Now, they’ll have that chance.
“It’s funny, our analytics and scout team probably has all their stuff worked up, because we were expecting to play them this series,” catcher Ryan Jeffers said. “So we’re going to take a couple days, reset, recover, but then turn our sights to Houston. We’ve got a lot bigger goals than just this.”
Carlos Correa, who played a pivotal role in the 2-0 win over the Blue Jays on Wednesday, is sure to be a focal point in the series. The shortstop was drafted first overall by the Astros in 2012 and won a ring in Houston in 2017 before signing with the Twins as a free agent ahead of last season and then inking a long-term contract to stay in Minnesota
“Obviously they’ve got a great team, and so do we. We’re going out there with the mentality that we can compete against anybody,” Correa said. “When I look at our roster, everywhere you look we’re ready. Our bullpen, our … rotation, our lineup, is deep. I feel good about the team we have, and I feel confident going to Houston.”
Twins OK after health scares
The later innings of Wednesday’s games provided some scary health moments for two of the team’s most important players — but the Twins seem to have come out of the game OK.
Correa was drilled by a 99.3 mph fastball in the eighth inning, but he said he had an X-ray, which did not reveal a fracture and proclaimed himself good to go.
An inning later, Jhoan Duran started shaking his right hand after a warmup pitch, prompting a visit from trainers Nick Paparesta and Masa Abe. That, manager Rocco Baldelli said, was because of a little cut on the top of his thumb, which had started to bleed a little bit.
“The umpires were helpful just in the fact that they gave us time to responsibily work on him, get him in a good spot,” Baldelli said. “Then for him to go out there and settle in and get those outs was enormous.”
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